Centenary Camp

Well it’s over. Five years in the planning (3 of them with me on the team), hours spent working to make it happen, dealing with contractors, health and safety, planning programmes, dealing with paper work and then on Wednesday morning we finally moved onto site.

8.15am and the first lorry turned up. 8pm on Monday we finally had the site clear.

The scale was huge. We took a green field site, normally a public park, and fenced it in, brought in water, sewage, toilets, electricity, rubbish disposal, and every other service a small town needs. For 48 hours a thousand scouts lived, worked, played and learned together and had a fantastic time. We then took it all down again in just 30 hours. I averaged about 5 hours sleep a night, I barely sat down.

I have never worked so hard either physically or mentally but damn I’m proud! I worked with a fine group of people who either already were or who have now become fantastic friends.

And I have been inundated with emails from parents saying how fantastic the whole event was and how much fun the kids had.

Despite all the hard work, it was worth it, totally worth it. There were several moments that told me it had gone off right. Seeing my Cubs dance the Macarena, seeing the Red Cross presentation on human rights have several Explorer Scouts in tears, the Mexican wave before the camp fire and just hearing the banter over the radio system.

So when people ask me what I did over the bank holiday, I can tell them that I pulled it out the bag!